


No Future

by Fluffinson (orphan_account)



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: 1953 - Freeform, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 14:01:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13366209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Fluffinson
Summary: But they're stronger than methe boy says.Then just bite them next timehe answers.Ulrich's never been more of a fool.





	No Future

 

 

 

"But they're stronger than me." the boy says, and he's a sickly little thing. Dark under the eyes.

"Then just bite them next time." He answers. It's generic advice maybe, but that's because it works, "Or they'll never leave you alone."

Ulrich knows that game. If you run, it only makes them want to chase. Always there is the distinction between predator and prey. It's obvious - even before the moment comes - which each of them _are_.

He's a very small child, fine boned.

Ulrich notices he doesn't cry. He's been pushed to the ground and pissed on but the boy doesn't cry. He says he's okay.

And Ulrich has other worries.

 

 

When _it_ happens Ulrich can barely bring himself to do it. And it must be animal instinct - how the boy perceives the threat immediately, backs away slowly until the moment Ulrich is ready to spring. Not like other children - not the way a child would react, Ulrich likes to think it's predator recognizing predator. _Needs_ to think it's that.

The boy runs.

The boy bites him, kicks, runs, fights.

All for naught.

And the small face looking up at him isn't shocked. It's only waiting - something suspiciously close to resignation in it. Something hopefully curious as if he's wondering if maybe Ulrich is only testing him - to see if he's taken his words to heart.

The boy - until the end, even after the first hit, doesn't cry. Doesn't make any sounds, not even ones of pain.

 _Fight Back_. Ulrich had said.

Only to betray the words so perversely - so thoroughly - to show the boy how wrong they were.

There is a little crescent of teeth marks pressed into the skin of Ulrich's palm.

 

 

Ulrich has never felt more wretched.

He should feel relieved. He's saved Mads and he's saved Mikkel. And Eric and Yasin and other boys Ulrich's never laid eyes upon - he's saved them all.

All he can see, though, behind his eyes is a small fist tightly gripping a rock. The unorganized torn apart mess Ulrich has made of the boy's face. He's still, breathless. Blood - tendril like - wrapping around the small boy. As if he's the painting of some great Renaissance master.

_They're beautiful when they're dead._

Ulrich, despite himself, understands - suddenly in the cellar.

He doesn't _want_ to understand.

 

 

Egon gets him in the end. Just like Egon has always swore he would. Only - it really is all Ulrich, isn't it?

"They reported him missing this morning." Egon says, tone clipped, but Ulrich's ears are deaf to it.

It's such a small detail Ulrich almost misses it. Ulrich's had Helge since yesterday afternoon.

"I should have known." Egon spits angrily, and there's something like self hatred there. "I went to look for him yesterday for my daughter. I could have caught you then. I should have known. His own mother would prefer him dead and Bernd is careless. I should have _known_."

A sick pulse crawls through Ulrich as he thinks of Mikkel. Mikkel who had been much loved and searched for within minutes.

Egon says it like he isn't expecting Ulrich to answer. Ulrich gets it - there's no one for him to confess to. For a fleeting moment Ulrich understands Egon completely. Sympathizes with him, even.

"Tell me where he is." Egon all but begs.

But Ulrich can't. Because nothing has changed.

Ulrich realizes, a little hysterically, that Helge must not be dead.

Ulrich's holding out until the boy bleeds out.

The needless suffering and the utter infuriate of a job possibly left undone consumes him.

Ulrich thinks. Ulrich thinks so fucking hard his brain might actually explode.

Charlotte has mentioned Helge a lot - at work, on cases, socially.

"You think he wouldn't have kept the cabin." Charlotte had said, back when her husband had had all the properties signed over to him from his father, "Because of what happened to him there as a child."

Ulrich doesn't want it to be true.

Not that.

Not that it was all for nothing.

She'd mentioned other things too. Good things. Genuinely fond things. Sad suspicions she'd had. At the time Ulrich had thought it'd been most simply a distraction from her straying husband.

It's inconceivable Ulrich will change nothing. 

He remembers Charlotte mentioning her father in law's mangled ear, mangled face, and wants to cry.

He didn't cause this. Ulrich swears he didn't.

It's about then that some sense is forcibly knocked into Ulrich and he realizes - he didn't account for Noah.

Ulrich's never felt like more of a fool.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
